The Star Gate Program (Hetalia/Stargate SG1 X-Over)
Author: Ashynarr
Summary: It was the discovery of the century. A device older than human civilization, capable of transporting people across the galaxy in an instant. But things have a way of quickly becoming complicated, pushing America and others to their limits as they find themselves embroiled in galactic politics and intrigue throughout the stars.
Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine. Stargate isn't mine.
Warning: Alterations of the Stargate timeline/canon and Hetalia canon
[Inspired by Stargate Reopened; I recommend reading it if you have the time.]
[Chapter 8]
~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~
[October 1993]
Some days, Dr. Rodney McKay really wished he was back at Area 51 instead of stranded on some alien world. Even the actual challenge of working with an alien database millions of years ahead of anything produced by humans didn't remove the fact that the place was run down, exposed to the elements and who knew how many kinds of diseases and hostile creatures, and most importantly lacked any sort of working plumbing, which was really unsanitary and honestly why hadn't anyone bothered to fix that yet?
The Giza Project had caught his interest from the moment the team he'd worked with back in Nevada had been informed discreetly about the program several years ago, though he'd been more interested in the datasets from the device (and the Heliopolis computer) than actually seeing everything in person. When they'd been told they needed someone capable of working with computers that ran on an entirely different tier of technology, he'd been volunteered by the others for the job.
Unfortunately for him, the military had accepted, hence why he'd been dragged away from his perfectly nice Ring datasets (which he'd been on the verge of a breakthrough about, damnit all), put through too many physical and mental health exams, and unceremoniously shoved through the wormhole into what turned out to be the sad ruins of what was once an incredibly advanced place.
At least the company was decent. And by company he meant the computer - the people around weren't even decently versed in the basics of multidimensional astrophysics, and watching their eyes glaze over as he went on about the data only satisfied his pride for so long.
Fuck, he wanted some coffee.
Rodney allowed his head to fall against the database's access stand, cursing his luck again. He couldn't even get some time to talk to that Carter woman about his theories about the Ring's unused feedback signals because she was apparently too sensitive about the flaws in the current dialing program.
Whatever, it wasn't his problem if she wasn't going to listen to his advice. He had bigger things to worry about, like how in the heck he was going to find the specific Ring address that would get him (and a lot of valuable material) back to Terra Firma before these ruins collapsed into the ocean.
As if to remind Rodney of his looming deadline, the walls shook briefly, the storm outside batting against the ancient structure and winds howling down the exposed tunnels. The database was far enough away from any serious damage that the sounds were mostly muffled, but Rodney still jumped slightly every time the room shook because of a lightning strike or strong gust of wind.
(At least it wasn't as bad as the time a few of the boneheaded soldiers thought it'd be funny to put one of those Little Hellions into his room early in the morning, waking him and subsequently the entire building with his screams. At least the Corporal had taken them away to talk to them about interfering with important personnel.)
Well, he was awake again, even if it wasn't thanks to the modern comfort of coffee. Since none of the others had come back yet from their break, it was as good a time as any to actually get some work in without having to explain everything he was doing twice to the less gifted types he was now being forced to work with.
After a brief moment he opened up his copy of Dr. Littlefield's translations and research, which already had plenty of scratch outs and scribbled additions by his own hand as he made his way further into the archive than the older man had. Unfortunately, though there had been plenty of tantalizing information on other things, he still hadn't located anything about the Ring or how to get home.
Rodney ran a hand over his mouth, stepping back for a moment to look at the current information floating overhead, which vaguely translated seemed to be an energy curve for an engine design for FTL travel, which if fully translated and utilized would set space travel forward hundreds of years - well, not that the Ring hadn't already.
If only it had been the manual for this archive instead.
"You'd think the guy would have found something in the last fifty years that translates to 'wormhole', or at least to 'Ring'." Rodney muttered to himself, stepping back to the platform to start another search chain that would hopefully provide something that would direct him in the right direction.
They didn't even have the word for 'door', for goodness sake! He was no literary master, but he figured that even aliens would have synonyms for the Ring relating to doorways or something similar. The closest word they currently had was 'path', which had for the last three attempts only led to a layout of the planet from several million years ago, what looked like star routes between this galaxy and another, and finally this engine design.
All great and wonderful for everyone else. Not so great for Rodney, who could feel his pride being chipped at.
They didn't even have a word that could lead them to a dictionary! At least with that Rodney could find the right words to input for another run through the repository.
Maybe he needed to use another seed word. But what was there to use? "Space" didn't turn up anything other than star maps of the Local Cluster, same with "galaxy" when it'd been put in again. "Travel" only showed ship designs and energy calculations, and everything else gave information so unrelated he didn't even bother considering it-
"Wait, wait a second. Star maps… star- star!" Rodney could've clapped his hands together at the burst of inspiration if had hadn't already been busy searching the word in the database. Unfortunately, all it got him was more star maps and the composition of the local sun (which despite his scowl he wrote down, because that was gonna make finding where this star was in Earth's skies a lot easier).
He sat back again, staring up at the real-time images of Helios (as the star had been informally dubbed by the expedition), wondering what he was missing. It had to be something to do with 'star', because the Ring involved controlled one-way travel betwee-
"Star path," He muttered, this time indulging in slapping his head at how obvious a solution it was in hindsight. Wormholes were just paths between two points in space, and if the people who'd made this database thought in any way similarly to how he did-
Rodney couldn't hold back a victorious grin when the star was replaced with the familiar image of the Ring, laughter bubbling up as he imagined how he was going to brag about this victory. He was going home, and civilization had never seemed sweeter and more enticing.
Well, he conceded internally as the smile started to drop, after he figured out to get from here to the addresses. He stood back again, ignoring the others who were just trailing in and stopping to stare at the display, thinking of how he'd go from 'star path' to 'star path address' without the word 'address'.
Code? Nope. Didn't have the word.
Number? No way, the symbols had already been determined to not be any sort of counting system.
Maybe he was overthinking it? He tried 'star path star' and 'star path path', both of which only came back to the Ring again. He groaned, turning to look at the silent audience with a glare.
"Are you all gonna stand there like a bunch of monkeys or are you actually going to help me?"
"Well, what did you put in there to get that?" One older guy, who Rodney only remembered after a moment was Corporal O'Neill, directed his attention to him with a frown.
" 'Star path', but that's not the actual translation, just similar enough that the system recognizes it. I need a word that translates to 'address' in order to get to the actual information we want."
"Code?"
"Don't have the word for it." Rodney shut down immediately.
The corporal frowned, looking back up to the image of the Ring. "Directions."
...that was a word they knew. Dr. McKay turned back to the archive panel, adding the new word to the search, and stepping back as hundreds of six symbol addresses started rolling by, each with more untranslated names next to them which held no meaning but still made Rodney struggle between shock that it'd worked and elation for finally piecing it all together.
"Looks like crossword puzzles are good for something after all," The corporal muttered to himself; Rodney resisted making a face at that, shaking his head as he realized there was still work to be done. Namely, Earth's address. And also to figure out that seventh symbol.
Ah well, that wasn't going to be nearly as much of a challenge as getting to the information in the first place had been. At least, not if the replacement dialing device worked like it was supposed to.
He could practically taste the coffee waiting for him back on Earth already.
~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~
AN: Done with my calc 1 final, hoorah! Though since fall semester starts in about 10 days, that's not really too much of a break overall. Ah well, I can relax for a bit, so all is well. Well, at least as much as I can when I start realizing all the little details I got wrong here and there in the series and just holes in the story overall.
*sighs* Ah well, I was able to go back and change a few things, but you don't really need to go back and check them unless you want to. It might add a slightly different direction to the whole thing, but not one that couldn't have been worked in either way. I at least feel better about it all being accurate as it can be now! That's something.
Though this is an empty promise, I'm gonna try to just focus on this, Hero Training, and Suitable Wereiness until I finish those two. This one'll probably last a long while because of the amount of material available, but I can start new projects alongside it. But yeah, just letting you all know about this now because I'm gonna buckle down and really try to get into the groove.
